Greipel takes another sprint victory on stage 15 of the Tour de France

Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) has claimed a third stage win at the 2015 Tour de France, winning the stage 15 bunch sprint in Valence ahead of John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) and Alexander Kristoff (Katusha).

Greipel was the first to launch his sprint, punching off Kristoff’s wheel with 250 metres to go. While Degenkolb was well-placed in his compatriot’s slipstream, he wasn’t able to come around Greipel who powered to the line for another stage win.

The second stage was not without controversy. Brennauer’s teammate Tayler Wiles had attacked the breakaway that she initiated and was leading the race solo when she was led off-course by a police moto. The mishap cost Wiles the stage win and saw Velocio-SRAM lose the overall lead.

The German-registered team came out swinging on Sunday’s double day. Brennauer, the individual time trial world champion, won the morning time trial and moved back into yellow as Velocio-SRAM put three in the top four.

In the afternoon road stage, Gracie Elvin (Orica-AIS) soloed to victory atop the ‘Steile Wand von Meerane’, a steep cobbled 400-metre climb to the finish. Brennauer finished second to Emma Johansson in the uphill bunch kick and stays in yellow with four stages still to race.

Tayler Wiles is checking in daily out of Thüringen and you can read her diaries here. Her piece on being led off-course illustrates what a win would mean for a team worker.

Only 107 of the 217 riders on the original start list managed to make it the final day of the 14th Tour of Qinghai Lake for the final stage 13 on Saturday, July 18 in Shuidonggou, China.

After nearly 2,027 kilometres, with altitudes exceeding 4,000 metres over 13 days, including 12 stages and a rest day following stage 9, what remained of the pro peloton rolled up for the 135km ‘Tian You De’ stage race from Shuidonggou to Yinchuan. Even race favourite Mattia Gavazzi (Amore & Vita-Selle SMP) appeared worse for wear while fighting a severe head cold and fever that held him to fourth a day earlier on stage 12.

“Yesterday morning I have a fever and this morning I’m not good but I give it my all in the race and start to feel better and by the end I get the win,” said Gavazzi, who captured one more win than the team’s pre-race goal of three stage wins.

Radoslav Rogina wins the overall classification of the 2015 Tour of Qinghai Lake

Jolien d’Hoore wins BeNe Ladies Tour

It was nearly a clean sweep for Belgian national road champion Jolien d’Hoore (Wiggle Honda) at the BeNe Ladies Tour this weekend. The 25-year-old won the first three stages of the three-day, four-stage tour en route to her overall win. Alison Tetrick (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) spoilt the chances of d’Hoore going four from four by soloing to victory on the final stage.

Image courtesy Wiggle-Honda

The opening stage of the race saw a select four-rider breakaway escape. D’Hoore was joined up the road by teammate Chloe Hosking, Floortje Mackaij (Liv-Plantur) and Elena Cecchini (Lotto Soudal). The quartet held off the peloton with d’Hoore proving fastest from the small group.

The second day of the BeNe Ladies Tour included a morning time trial and an afternoon road stage. With the time trial win, d’Hoore extended her overall advantage before winning the afternoon road stage from a field sprint.

Ali Tetrick won the third and final stage of the BeNe Ladies Tour with a bold solo move. The American powered away from the peloton during an aggressive final hour of racing that saw the early break caught and numerous attacks follow. Although Tetrick never gained more than a minute advantage, it proved enough to hold off the chasers and claim the stage win.

Robert Power wins Giro Ciclistico della Valle d’Aosta

Australia’s Robert Power (AIS WorldTour Academy) has ridden himself to the overall victory of the mountainous 52nd edition of the Giro Ciclistico della Valle d’Aosta U23 race.

Power said on social media after the race, “Can’t thank my team enough for their amazing effort this week, great week of racing! @alex_clements @jack_haig @harrycarpenter6 @freddyovett ???
Amazing I won Val d’Aosta! Great team and great week on this crazy hard race with 14000 mt altitude!”

With only scarce details on the race homepage, it’s difficult to work out how exactly each of the 5 stages panned out. But from what we can work out, Power was able to hold onto the leaders on each of the climbs and maintain his overall lead after winning the opening prologue, never relinquishing the yellow jersey.

Sunday 19th July 2015

Froome faults media after urine thrown at him

Chris Froome has claimed that some media reporting is indirectly to blame for attacks on Team Sky, suggesting that incidents involving himself and Richie Porte are down to some unnamed individuals reporting on the race.

The Tour leader spoke at length on the topic after the end of stage 14 to Mende and drew a direct connection between reports written about the race and the actions of individual fans.

“About 50, 60s kilometres into the race, a spectator threw a small cup of urine at me while shouting dopé [doped] at me,” he said.

“I saw this guy just peering around and I thought, ‘that looks a bit strange.’ As I got there, he just launched this cup towards me and said, ‘dopé’ like that. Make no mistake, it was urine.

“I certainly wouldn’t blame the public for this. It really is a minority of the people out there who are ruining it for everyone else. But I would blame some of the reporting on the race which has been very irresponsible. Having said that, those individuals know who they are and they are individuals.”

Laurent Jalabert confronted by Matt Rendell

Laurent Jalabert, who was found to have used EPO during his cycling career in retrospective testing (but never admitted to it), was confronted by ITV journalist Matt Rendell about his statements made regarding Chris Froome at the 2015 Tour de France:

https://youtu.be/29u-H3xM5rE?t=3m12s

Froome took exception to Jalabert’s denial that he’d made the comments, posting this message on Twitter on Sunday evening.

.@JalabertLaurent if you’re going to deny making statements about me maybe you should remember that you’re being recorded on Live TV/Radio

Mark Cavendish just ‘trying to survive’ on Tour de France stage 15 after illness

Mark Cavendish says he had been ill with diarrhoea the night prior to stage 15 of the Tour de France, and was hoping for an easy start in order to stand a chance at victory.

“I was up last night with diarrhoea. Obviously I don’t want to say that before the start of the stage, in case of team tactics you pray for an easy start,” Cavendish said in a statement.

“We had the plan that we would get guys in the break anyway. I didn’t feel good at the start at all. It’s a shame because I was going good the last couple of days and guys who I was easy hanging on longer than [were] just riding past me on the first hill.”

“After 30km it was about trying to survive the day really,” Cavendish said. “We knew we weren’t a chance winning with me but we had guys in the break, which is really good.

“It was a hard day for us but I’m still in the Tour de France, which is nice. I’m just looking forward to trying to get to Paris and hopeful I’m not ill the next days.”

Rider kicked off Tour de France for hitching a lift in another team’s car

If the stories at the Tour de France couldn’t get any stranger, here’s one for you:

Eduardo Sepulveda of the Bretagne-Séché Environnement team was disqualified from the Tour de France for taking a lift in a Ag2r-La Mondiale car on stage 14. The Argentinian was disqualified at the finish of the stage for hopping in the team car on the final climb up to Mende.

“At the top of the climb he broke his chain and was rescued by the Ag2r team, who gave him a wheel thinking that was the problem,” said Sepulveda’s manager Emmanuel Hubert.

“He was hidden by the car and I didn’t see him. I stopped 100 metres further up and Eduardo, instead of coming to the car on foot, covered the 100 metres on the backseat of the AG2R car. There is nothing to say. The rules applied.”

Sabotage and hatred: what have people got against cyclists?

Cycling is bigger than ever but it has provoked a negative backlash. Recent incidents involving tacks scattered on roads have taken the vilification of cyclists to a whole new level.

The debate around cycling occasionally bears comparison with the treatment of so-called societal outgroups, according to Dr Ian Walker, a psychologist at Bath University.

“What you see in discourses about cycling is the absolute classic 1960s and 1970s social psychology of prejudice,” he explains. “It’s exactly those things that used to be done about minority ethnic groups and so on – the overgeneralisation of negative traits, under-representation of negative behaviours by one’s own group, that kind of thing. It’s just textbook prejudiced behaviour.”

Turning tragety into change: Remembering Amy Gillett 10 years on

It was 10 years ago today when, on a training ride in Germany before Thüringen Rundfahrt, the then 29-year-old Amy Gillett and her five Australian teammates were struck by a car. The five teammates survived; Amy did not.

The tragedy highlighted the risk every cyclist faces on the road and gave a country a name, face and story of the vulnerable road user. Even when the grief was fresh, her husband Simon Gillett and her family were determined not to let the positivity of Amy be extinguished along with her life. They set out to create a foundation to improve cyclists’ safety, the Amy Gillett Foundation.

Now, the organisation has grown and expanded to become a well-recognised force in cycling advocacy in Australia, and her story is a constant reminder of the tragedy behind every cycling fatality statistics.

We spoke with Amy’s mother, Mary Safe, about remembering those lost on the roads, the emotion of the plans to remember the 10th anniversary of Amy’s passing at Thüringen Rundfahrt and the importance of the changes driven by the foundation bearing her daughter’s name.

That Della Valle D’Aosta podium shot is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Bravo to Matthews, incredible work to get this far, hopefully tonight is the night. And Kudos to Weening. That guy is a machine. Whether its a mountain finish or a sprint he works his arse off to get his man to the front. Last night he single handedly bought Bling to the front when every other team had a train.

Andy B

Dogs on the podium = awesome

Gavin Adkins

There is so much awesome happening on that podium.

TV Time Tommy

Are those podium kids wearing some sort of codpiece?

jules

Jalabert really disgraced himself there. what a massive tool.

martin

It’s astounding really. To take that tone in a live broadcast then deny it so soon afterwards is quite amazing. I wonder if the French riders were doing a bit better overall the tone from the French media would be somewhat more positive.

Gavin Adkins

I remember reading a profile on Jalabert back in the 90s and it said something along the lines of, even though he is/was arguably one of the greats of his time, he probably wouldn’t be much of a dinner guest. Looks like that was bang on the banana.

Simon

Good article from the Guardian. As I reflect on over 50 years on the bike I agree with the comparison to attitudes to minority ethnic groups etc in the 60s and 70s. Also it’s not war when the statistics about the number of cyclists vs cars using the road and the weights of their conveyances are compared. Every day most cyclists will have a close encounter with some “aggrieved” road user in a vehicle. Still we all ride for various reasons but for me the simple fact of harmless physical exercise on the most efficient machine devised is still a joy and wonder.

jules

there is a clear pattern with this type of prejudice. one of the factors is always to make the target of prejudice seem like much more of a threat than they are. instead of being highly vulnerable riders whose lives are at the mercy of drivers every moment they take to the road, cyclists are instead scofflaw rule breakers – giving the finger to motorists and practically begging to be run down.

it’s the same with other similar targets like refugees. whatever your political view on the topic (and that’s not the point here), you can observe anti-refugee advocates portraying refugees not as desperate people risking their lives on the seas, but as aggressors who are threatening vulnerable australian’s way of life. this legitimises attacks on them – the same as portraying cyclists as law breaking cowboys.

my old man emigrated with europeans in the 50s – back then people used to spread the rumour europeans all carried knives. my dad – at 9 yrs of age – was searched at school by a teacher who took a fellow child’s claim that he had a knife at face value. we haven’t moved that far ahead..

James G

Looks like Jack Haig was central to Robbie defending the jersey. However, it also looks like he lost it for a day when the Russian won, only to take it back the following day….and if the podium shot isn’t good enough, get a load of the trophy. Straight to the pool room.

Douglas

Typo in heading to section about Amy Gillet.

Dave

^ And in your comment too.

Jessy Vee

I’m looking forward to watch Robert Power over the course of his career. He’s an exciting talent.

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